


Warm Together

by strawberryrose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: hd_erised, Draco Malfoy Has Long Hair, Family Feels, Friendship, Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, Kissing, M/M, Past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Past Character Death, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Post-Hogwarts, Professor Draco Malfoy, Professor Harry Potter, Professor Neville Longbottom, Professors, Slice of Life, The Sorting Hat, Truth or Dare, partially epilogue compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-06 14:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12819198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryrose/pseuds/strawberryrose
Summary: Eight months in the life of Harry Potter, Professor of Defence at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as he gets to know his newest colleague and navigates his youngest son’s first year at school.





	1. Nineteen Years Later

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ereribell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ereribell/gifts).



> Dear ereribell, happy holidays! You asked for a variety of things and I wish I could have included more of them, but you also asked for fluff, kids, and professors, and that I could provide! This fic was an utter joy to write, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! ♥
> 
> Lots of love to the mods, who were incredibly patient even when unexpected health problems caused me to be incredibly slow. Thank you so much to E, who very kindly betaed for me even though I was significantly overtime, and to my wonderful friend M, who read this over for me on a holiday when I had doubts at the last possible second. ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine!

It was late April when Filius Flitwick announced that he would be, at more than one hundred and twenty years of age, finally retiring at the end of the school year. It turned into quite the event. A small article about the retirement ran in the _Daily Prophet_ , which lead to a surprising amount of reader response and a longer article with a front-page blurb. After that, Filius found himself the recipient of nearly half a dozen owls a day for the rest of May and June, all from ninety years’ worth of grateful former students.

The end-of-year feast became a school-wide retirement party of sorts, with the entirety of Ravenclaw house presenting him with an oversized farewell card and a huge gift basket full of sweets and other treats, all topped off with a very small teddy bear in spangled robes of blue and bronze. Later, after the children had all boarded the train home, there was a smaller, official party just for the Hogwarts staff. It lasted until late into the night, Filius telling stories about parents and grandparents and particularly memorable hijinks to his group of largely younger colleagues, and them occasionally telling their own stories back.

The goodbyes were a little tearful, but fairly easy. What followed, not so much.

Replacing Filius as the Head of Ravenclaw House was simple enough - the Transfiguration Professor, Penelope Clearwater-Rickard, had been a Ravenclaw at school and was happy to take on the role.

Replacing Filius as Deputy Headmaster was only a matter of the Headmistress offering the job to the most qualified staff, in order, until one finally accepted. In the end, the Professor of Herbology and Head of Gryffindor House, Neville Longbottom, accepted the position.

Replacing Filius Flitwick, renowned Charms Master and longest-serving Professor of Charms that Hogwarts had ever known, was a more difficult prospect. Even amongst the older staff members, only Professor Binns could remember a time before Professor Flitwick, and even he had only foggy memories from his distant youth.

Harry Potter, nineteen-year Professor of Defence, was dimly aware of the proceedings as Minerva worked her way through the list of Filius’ recommendations for the position. A few familiar faces came to interview, and as with every time there was a staff opening at Hogwarts, Hermione was offered the job (and as always she declined, busy as the Head of Magical Law Enforcement and in the midst of a campaign for the position of Minister for Magic). Harry knew that no one had yet been chosen by the time he left for the summer holiday, but as usual he fell slightly out of touch with the goings-on at Hogwarts over the summer, occupied as he was with three very active children and one very active nineteen-year-old godson.

Thus, it was only on the seventeenth of August, as Harry attempted to fit the new books Hermione had given him for his birthday onto the shelf in his office on the unofficial staff move-in day - the day before the first staff meeting of the new school year - that he discovered that a replacement Charms Professor had been hired.

"Really?" Harry directed the question at the uncooperative book in his hand rather than at Neville, who was perched on the desk behind him. "I mean, I’m not surprised, really. It’s not like McGonagall’s ever failed to find someone before, but it took a while this time. D’you know who it is?"

"No, haven’t met them yet," Neville replied. "I saw their things being moved in, though."

"Hm," Harry said, trying to stuff the book in sideways on top of some others near the top of the shelf. "I’ll have to go say hi later."

"Yeah," Neville agreed. "Harry, mate, I think you have to face it - you need a second bookshelf."

"No I don’t." Perhaps there was a space on the bottom shelf? "Once you get that second bookshelf, it’s all a slippery slope until you wake up one day and you’ve become Hermione. Nothing wrong with Hermione, of course, but-" Harry grunted as he wedged the book in. Finally. "There, see? Plenty of space."

Neville chuckled behind him, and Harry chose to ignore the way Neville shook his head and the way he eyed the shelf somewhat dubiously, as though it might decide to forcefully reject its obvious overload of books at any moment. Harry vowed to go through the books later and see if there were any he was willing to part with, or at least to move somewhere else. Not that the shelf in his quarters was in much better shape.

Unpacking and organizing continued until late morning, Neville having long since returned to his own chores, before Harry decided he’d had enough. His shoulders and neck crunched like gravel under tyres as he attempted to roll the stiffness out of them. He’d go meet the new teacher, he thought, and make sure they didn’t forget that it was nearly time for lunch. He grabbed a small box of Honeydukes for a welcoming present and headed off. Being the Defense Professor, it seemed that keeping a modest supply of chocolate around was always useful, plus it ingratiated him with the students and staff alike.

Harry encountered the perpetually sunshiny Gwen Quick, Professor of Muggle Studies, along the way and had a cheerful conversation about the muggleborn first-years she had introduced to the magical world a few weeks back, and so was in an unusually good mood by the time he reached the Charms Corridor. The door of the new teacher’s office was already open as Harry approached, and for a moment he paused in the doorway and just looked.

The new hire was in the middle of the room, facing away as she - he? Harry couldn’t quite tell from behind, and appearances really meant nothing to gender anyway - pulled books out of a box and sorted them into stacks on the desk. He (she? they?) was tall and slim, wearing plain but nice robes, and was no one Harry immediately recognized from behind. Harry’s eyes trailed down the long, loose plait falling down their back. That pale, pale blond hair looked familiar… where had he seen it before? Perhaps they were one of the students’ parents?

Harry knocked twice on the open door. The new professor startled and turned around in a swish of fabric, and the warm, lazy smile on Harry’s face melted away like ice cream in the summer.

Staring at him across the room was Draco Malfoy, who looked just as surprised to see him.

"Malfoy?" Harry said. "It’s…" It had been _ages_ , is what. The last time Harry had seen Draco Malfoy in person was maybe eighteen years ago, around the time Malfoy’s post-war probation had lifted. They hadn’t even interacted, not really, just nodded at each other as they went opposite ways in Diagon Alley. Malfoy had moved to France not long after - the papers had been all over it - and Harry hadn’t really seen him since. He’d got married, Harry was almost totally sure he’d heard about that, but a glance at his left hand showed no ring. Harry thumbed his own empty ring finger. Even after seven years, it still stung. Just a little.

Abruptly, Harry came to a decision and let a smile back onto his face - the same one Harry used on Hagrid when he was having a bad day, to let him know that he was appreciated, without having to come up with any difficult words. "It’s been forever. How’ve you been?"

Malfoy’s eyes widened just a hair, and he floundered for a response for a moment. It was kind of cute, if Harry was being honest.

"I, well, Potter, it’s… It certainly has been a while. I’m… fine. And you?"

"Good, good," Harry replied, maybe just a little too quickly. "So you’re the new Charms Professor? Congratulations, I know tons of people wanted the job."

Malfoy stared at him for several seconds too long, looking tense and wrong-footed, then seemed to relax all at once, leaning back against his desk with a sharp, voiceless laugh. He smiled a small smile, and something tiny and warm lodged itself firmly behind Harry’s ribs.

"Really? Prof- Minerva seemed rather desperate by the time she contacted me. I’d assumed she was lacking for candidates."

"Huh." Harry leaned against the doorframe with one shoulder, mulling that over for a moment. "I guess no one fit." That that implied that Draco, in fact, _had_ fit was left unstated. Harry tapped the Honeydukes box in his hand against his thigh, thinking, before he remembered what he’d come here to do in the first place. "Oh," he held the box out, taking a step into the office. Draco looked at it, a slight uncertainty on his face. "For you. Welcome to the staff."

Draco glanced up to Harry’s eyes, then back down to the box, and finally took it. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, something soft and sad in the set of his mouth and the fan of paper-thin creases at the corners of his eyes. Then, very abruptly, Draco smiled and placed the box on his desk.

"Thank you, Potter." He cleared his throat, looking slightly awkward. "Was that all? I ought to get back to work."

"Actually, the other reason I’m here is it’s almost time for lunch."

Draco whipped his head toward the clock on the wall so swiftly that Harry would be surprised if he didn’t get whiplash.

"Yeah, first day’s like that for everyone," Harry assured. "On mine, it was half three before I thought to look at the time."

"Well, then." Draco looked back at Harry and hesitated, eyeing him, something sparking in his grey eyes. "I suppose we ought to get going."

Harry smiled, and Draco smiled, and they set off for the Great Hall side-by-side.

* * *

Two weeks passed in the blink of an eye. Draco fit in perfectly with the rest of the staff, once the surprise had worn off, like he’d always belonged there. Like he was a piece of a puzzle that no one had realized was missing until it was found. Blaise Zabini, who taught Arithmancy, and Millicent Bulstrode, who had taken over as Librarian after Madam Pince’s retirement six years ago, were especially excited to see him.

Tracey Davis, who had been been given the role of Professor of Potions and Head of Slytherin House just as prematurely as Harry had been given Defense, was a little more wary of Malfoy for a while. Harry knew that she hadn’t been close with Malfoy when they were students, and that she hadn’t been a Voldemort supporter, and that she was difficult to befriend even _without_ pitfalls like that between them. Harry had managed it, though perhaps only through the solidarity of being the pair of out-of-their-depth eighteen-year-olds among veteran teachers twice and thrice and quadruple their age.

They were longtime friends now, though, and so when Tracey asked him, "Do you like him?" one day in the teachers’ lounge, Harry considered his answer carefully.

"I… yes? Tentatively. I don’t really know him anymore, it’s been so long."

Tracey gave a short, dissatisfied hum, but Harry noticed that after that she started to treat Draco more warmly. Or at least, with slightly less frost.

Harry might not know Draco anymore, really, but after two weeks he was starting to get there. They mostly saw each other at staff meetings and occasional meal times (those which Harry wasn’t able to spend at home with his children), but Harry had learned that the new Draco Malfoy was sort of quiet, easily flustered if teased, and less prickly than Harry remembered. He smiled a lot, though it rarely reached his eyes. He was bookish - he had three large shelves in his office and spent a lot of time in the library, though Harry wasn’t sure that wasn’t just to spend time with Millicent. He had, in fact, been married, and though Harry hadn’t yet learned when or how that had ended, he got the impression that it was still a relatively fresh wound.

Most importantly, Harry had discovered that Draco had a son. He was named Scorpius, he was the same age as Albus - just about to start at Hogwarts - and he was staying with Narcissa for the time being.

"We agreed that, since he is about to start school anyway, it might be nicer for him to see the castle for the first time along with his classmates." Draco told Harry over a lunch of sandwiches and salad three days before the start of term. "It didn’t hurt that it meant he could visit Mother for nearly half a month. He’s been so spoiled I hardly know what to do with him."

Harry laughed. "I know the feeling," he said. "Molly is still fairly strict, but whenever _George_ babysits…" Harry shuddered and Draco laughed in response. "You won’t have to deal with Scorpius all yourself, at least."

Draco shot a look at Harry that he couldn’t read, and hummed in a noncommittal sort of way. The subject seemed to be closed.

Harry said the first new thing he could think of. "What house do you think he’ll be in?"

Draco’s hum was more thoughtful this time. "I hardly dare to guess, honestly. Ravenclaw, perhaps? Scorpius does love his books." Harry’s mind flashed to the boxes of books he had seen Draco unpacking two weeks before, and thought that might be something father and son shared. "He has his heart set on Slytherin," Draco continued in a low tone, "in order to experience Hogwarts the way his mother and I described, but… Salazar forgive me, but I just don’t know if he has it in him. Even if he has the chance to make his case to the hat, I haven’t any idea if it’s so much as possible for him to talk it around." Draco sighed, frowning at his salad, the crease between his eyebrows deep and well-worn.

Words hovered on Harry’s tongue so heavily he could feel their shape. The phantom of a voice whispered _Not Slytherin, eh?_ into his ear.

"How about yours?"

"Hm?" Harry asked, for a split second still decades away, then snapped back to attention. "Oh, well, Teddy was in Hufflepuff and James is Gryffindor, of course. I can’t imagine Lily will be anything but Gryffindor, either, she’s always pulling some stunt or another. And Al…" Harry chewed on his lip.

His instinct said Gryffindor. All of his children, save for Teddy, were two generations deep in pure Gryffindor heritage on both sides of the family, much more than that on Ginny’s side, and not only James but every single one of the Weasley children who were old enough had already been sorted Gryffindor, but… Nevertheless, there was something that gave Harry pause - some impalpable thing that had made him hesitate every time he’d considered Albus’ Sorting ever since his son was still toddling.

"I’m not sure about Al," Harry admitted at length. "Gryffindor, I suppose?" Draco was studying him with barely-veiled curiosity, and Harry shrugged. "Just a few days until we find out for sure, at any rate."

Draco nodded. His murmured "Indeed," was almost too quiet for Harry to catch.

* * *

The first of September dawned crisp and bright, and the morning passed in a whirlwind of last-minute packing, bickering children, and smiling faces.

Ginny and Teddy had both come over to Grimmauld Place the day before to celebrate Albus’ birthday - the timing being something of a nightmare, as always. Though Teddy had said his goodbyes to his god-siblings and returned home once the celebration had ended, Ginny had stayed over in the guest room, and Harry was infinitely grateful for the extra help, especially as Albus spent most of the morning trying out his brand-new wizard camera instead of packing.

They ended up eating birthday cake for a last-minute breakfast before rushing to King’s Cross to meet Ron and Hermione and see off James, Albus, and Rose. Watching the train take them away, Harry felt a conflicted sense of loss. Unlike most parents of Hogwarts students, he’d have his school-age children close by throughout the year. Lily, on the other hand, he had to say goodbye to. Usually his kids stayed with him at Hogwarts while Ginny was touring with the Harpies, but halfway through the summer Lily had decided she wanted to be a Quidditch player like her Mum when she grew up. Ginny had been a little uncertain about the prospect of traveling with a nine-year-old in tow, but it was what Lily wanted, and so Ginny had eventually decided to try it out.

Harry’s eyes felt slightly damp as he knelt and hugged Lily goodbye. It would be the first time he’d ever lived so far apart from one of his children, and the first time since Ginny had been pregnant with James that he’d be living alone in his rooms at Hogwarts. Harry’s heart squeezed in his chest, and he held Lily a tiny bit tighter.

Between the sugar and the rushing about and the knowledge that he wouldn’t see his daughter until Christmas, by the time Harry made his way back to Hogwarts he was feeling a bit worn out, to put it mildly. If there hadn’t been food (real food!) and strong tea at the final pre-term staff meeting, Harry was certain he’d have dozed through it.

Evening was approaching by the time the meeting - the longest and most in-depth of the year, traditionally - let out.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Blaise told Draco with a wide, handsome smirk. "This five hours is the last peace you’ll have until winter hols. Soak it in. Embrace it."

Draco did not embrace it. Harry spotted Draco pacing along the shore of the lake while he was returning to the castle from Hagrid’s hut, walking the aisles of the Great Hall while Harry passed by on his way to the teachers’ lounge to see if that was where he’d left his favourite mug (it was), and finally all but ran straight into Draco just inside the library doors, the stack of books he’d been meaning to take to Millicent nearly toppling as Harry swerved out of Draco’s path.

"Draco," Millicent said sharply as Harry’s books tottered perilously, "pace if you must, but for Merlin’s sake, will you do it away from the doors?" Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Draco scuttle away like a reprimanded first-year. The top half of his stack of books levitated away, and Harry let out a sigh of relief. "All these?" Millicent asked, peering at the books one after another. "Don’t expect to unload all of these on me, Potter, just because you refuse to get a second bookshelf. I probably have most of them already, and some are-" she sniffed disdainfully as he roughly dropped the second half of the pile next to the first, "-probably woefully out of date."

"That’s fine," Harry replied. "Grab whatever you want, and I’ll donate the rest or something."

"Of course. Oh, are you intending to hover over me like that the whole time? Bugger off a bit, if you please. Go talk to Draco, maybe. You’re a father, perhaps you’ll understand what he’s going through. I, frankly, haven’t the foggiest."

Harry frowned as he looked up at the apparently empty library. "Okay, but where is he?"

"Sulking in the stacks, no doubt," Millicent replied.

"I _can_ hear you, you know," Draco’s voice came from among the shelves. Millicent snorted and waved Harry off.

It took Harry a couple of minutes to find Draco in one of the window seats, arms crossed tightly over his chest and one foot tapping anxiously against the carpet as he stared out at the slowly darkening sky. His pale eyebrows raised as Harry came around the end of one long shelf.

"You actually came over?"

"Yeah, well," Harry said, dropping onto the seat next to Draco, "it wasn’t going to do any good to hover over Millie." Harry wriggled a bit to get comfortable. It was something of a tight fit in the window seat, with them both being full-grown men, but it wasn’t too bad - sort of cosy, even. "So, what’s up?"

Draco huffed. "It’s nothing, really. Nothing I can do anything about, at any rate." When Harry just stared at him, Draco sighed. "I’m just-" his voice dropped to a murmur. "I’m simply worried about Scorpius and the other children."

Harry frowned. "Because of the war?"

Draco hesitated, drumming his fingers against his arm. Harry could feel the vibration where their shoulders were pressed together. "Yes, and no. I am concerned they’ll be cruel to Scorpius for what my father and I did during the war. That would be terribly unfair to him, but Astoria and I tried to be honest with him about our family’s reputation. Well, as honest as appropriate, considering he’s still just a child. He’s as prepared for that possibility as one could be."

Silence stretched between them for long enough that Harry nudged him and quietly asked, "So, what’s the real problem?"

Draco shifted, and peered at Harry out of the corners of his eyes. "It’s my fault, really, but… I fear he won’t know how to relate to the other children. Do you know where we were living, prior to this?"

"No? I mean, France, but not specifically. Should I?"

Draco shook his head. "It was an old, hidden house in Reclesne."

Harry’s brow creased. Had he ever heard of that place before?

"If it doesn’t sound familiar, that’s because it has a population of slightly over three hundred, and of that, we were the only wizards."

"Oh."

"We visited the local towns from time to time. There was a little restaurant that Scorpius loved…" Draco trailed off, eyes far away. Harry waited in silence until Draco shook his head sharply and sighed again. "Since Scorpius was born, we’ve been back all of three times, not including right now. We taught him at home. He never got to know any of the local children, because our house was under _Fidelius_ , and he didn’t go to school with them. It’s not as though he’s never seen another child before, but the only one he’s ever properly _met_ is his cousin Lark, and even then they’ve only met twice, once when they were very small. He’s also never been out in public without me, or his mother, or my mother. I’m afraid he’s probably feeling very lost, right about now." Harry chewed his lip for a long moment, and finally shook his head.

"Look, Malfoy, if there’s one thing that teaching here all these years has taught me - and growing up here, really - it’s that kids are resilient. He’ll manage. He’ll meet some other lost firstie, or if he’s more used to adults, maybe he’ll make some older friends first. And look, if he spends the whole train ride reading by himself, that’s not the end of the world either. He’s going to have roommates by tonight. He’ll make friends, and seriously Draco, stop making that face at me, it’s _weird_."

"What face?" Draco demanded, turning away.

"The one that’s like-" Harry tried to arrange his features to mimic the expression, widening his eyes and parting his lips, but judging by the way Draco immediately started attempting to hide laughter behind a hand, all he had achieved was to look rather comical. "Well, anyway," Harry said, laughing as well, "You get the idea."

"Do I?" Draco asked, grey eyes sparkling with mirth. "I don’t know, Potter, I might have to see that face again in order to be certain."

Harry snorted a laugh. "I think my face just isn’t pointy enough to make the expression right, is all. It needs someone- ow!" Draco elbowed him in the side, though not with any particular rancor. "Your elbow is pointy too, you know."

"I do know," Draco said, his nose in the air and a smirk on his lips. He aimed another jab at Harry’s ribs, but Harry caught his arm, laughing.

"Potter, I’ve finished with your books." Millicent’s voice broke through their laughter. "Come take the rest back before you start actually wrestling in my library."

Harry struggled back up, still chortling, and turned to offer a hand up to Draco, who made the exact same face Harry had been trying to mimic, sending Harry into another bout of laughter.

"How do you suppose she knew?" Draco asked, humour still colouring his voice, as they made their way back to the desk.

"Secret librarian magic," Harry deadpanned. "It’s not taught in schools, but passed from librarian to librarian in a secret ritual. All librarians are omniscient within their domains."

Draco gaped at him for a moment, then clapped a hand to his mouth and laughed into his palm, eyes tearing with the effort. One laugh came out as a snort, and Draco stopped instantly, his face turning a startling shade of scarlet. Harry couldn’t quite help the laugh that wheezed out of him, which set Draco off again, which made Harry laugh harder.

By the time they made it back to the desk, Millicent was rolling her eyes and not quite managing to press her lips together hard enough to stop her smile. She gave Harry back most of the books he’d come in with. Draco dodged the half the stack she attempted to shove into his arms, but he held the doors open for Harry all the way back to his office, and left for his own still smiling.

* * *

The sound of a train’s bell echoed through the castle as the Hogwarts Express pulled into the Hogsmeade station, and Harry leapt up from his desk. His heart pounded in his chest as he jogged all the way to the Great Hall, the way it had on the same date eight years ago for Teddy, and two years ago for James. He flashed a wave and a grin at Neville as he hurried through the entrance hall, where Neville was bouncing on his toes in anxious anticipation as he waited to open the doors of Hogwarts to the first-years for the first time.

Minerva was already taking her seat at the head table when Harry arrived, and Binns looked as though he could have been there for hours, but most of the staff had yet to arrive. Harry threw Penelope and Blaise a smile as he bypassed the table and went straight to the windows along the back wall, just as he did every year. It was a silly little tradition, Harry supposed, but tradition nevertheless. He cupped his hands around his face and looked out into the night.

Harry’s eyes were just beginning to adjust when a voice directly beside him said,

"What are you doing, Potter?"

Harry jumped, then laughed. He knew that voice without having to see its owner.

"Draco! Come look."

There was a long pause, and then someone - presumably Draco - crowded up beside him at the window.

"What am I looking f- oh."

Harry grinned. From this window and this window alone, the angle across the lake and between the trees afforded a view of the tiny, twinkling lights of Hogsmeade station. Harry had discovered it the year he started teaching, as he paced behind the high table, unable to calm himself enough to sit down. He’d spotted the lights, nothing more than a wink of brightness at the corner of his eye, on maybe his thirtieth pass by the windows.

"It didn’t used to be visible from here," Minerva had commented when she’d come to see what had finally brought his nervous energy to a halt. "Perhaps a tree fell?"

Every year since then, Harry had gone to the window on September first. It was strange, but even though he was never away from Hogwarts for long these days, seeing the lights at the station filled him with a sense of _coming home_.

A new light appeared and bobbed along the platform, high above the others. If he strained, Harry swore he could almost see Hagrid’s bushy head, and hear his calls for the first years to gather. On the other end of the platform, the carriage lamps were beginning to advance up the path toward Hogwarts. To Harry’s right, Draco let out a breath. It sounded like delight.

"Scorpius is down there…?" Draco murmured, wondering, so quietly that Harry wouldn’t have heard him if he hadn’t been so near.

"Unless you think he’s likely to have jumped from the train, yes he is," Harry replied, a laugh in his voice, then laughed even harder when Draco made a sound like a mouse. "He’s down there, don’t worry! Even Fred and George never tried that."

Hagrid’s lantern began to bob away again, and Harry’s breath caught in his chest. Albus was on his way. Not just Albus, but Rose, and Scorpius as well. Harry grinned again.

Someone appeared on Harry’s left, pressing close, and Harry knew from the gentle vanilla-chocolate perfume and the timbre of their hum that it was Tracey. Harry pressed back, and got a warm chuckle in response.

"Carriages are nearly at the doors," she commented.

"I’ll sit before the kids get here," Harry assured her. "Just one moment. Draco should see this. Follow Hagrid," he said in Draco’s direction.

"I already was," Draco replied.

Hagrid’s lantern dipped behind some trees for a long moment, the faintest hint of its light flashing between branches and leaves. Harry could hear the head table behind him filling up, and the chuckle of Poppy Pomfrey to see the three of them clustered at the window like eager children as she walked by. Hagrid’s lantern re-emerged. Paused. Harry held his breath.

One by one, little lights winked on, reflecting in the lake’s water, as children climbed into the boats. Once more than a dozen of them sat twinkling, they began to move, gliding across the lake toward the castle. Harry stood watching for as long as he could get away with, until Tracey nudged his shoulder again and left to find a place to sit, and the sound of the older students’ voices began to ring in the entrance hall.

Tracey had disappeared somewhere up the table by the time Harry turned, pulling Draco along with him, but Penelope and Blaise had apparently saved seats for him and Draco, and Harry grinned as Penelope waved them over. They were just settling into their chairs when the first children arrived in the hall, chattering and laughing loudly.

"So, Draco," Blaise said, leaning toward Draco but keeping his eyes on the stream of students filling the room, "did you get any rest at all during the lull? You know, until today, somehow I’d forgotten how tightly-wound you are."

Draco sniffed at him. "I _did_ , and I am _not_ tightly-wound." Even Penelope, who had only known Draco for a little over two weeks, made a disbelieving noise at that assertion.

"Potter," Draco said, just as Harry caught sight of the first red Weasley head through the doors - Fred, George and Angelina’s oldest. "Tell them. I _did_ relax during the break, yes?"

Harry shrugged, eyes following his scowling nephew to the Gryffindor table. Was he alone? Were he and James _still_ quarreling? "Yeah? I mean, you did for a few minutes, at least."

Harry could practically _hear_ Draco roll his eyes. "Thank you ever so, Potter, I’m certain ‘a few minutes’ will suffice to make me sound _not_ tightly-wound." Draco’s deadpan flattened into weary irritation as he spoke, and Harry dragged his gaze away from Fred, grinning as something fluttered deep in his chest.

It was a matter of minutes until the hall was full and Neville was closing the doors. Harry chewed his lip and watched James chat with Oren Chase, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain. He wondered why it was that every year, they let the first years stew in the antechamber off the entrance hall for a few minutes. Was it pure tradition, or was there some true reason behind it? He knew for a fact that Neville already had the Sorting Hat and stool prepared, so it wasn’t for preparation time. Perhaps making them nervous made it easier for the hat to get a read on them?

Harry’s heart leapt into his throat when the doors of the Great Hall swung open once again, and he heard Draco intake a sharp breath beside him.

The first years were wide-eyed as they followed Neville down the center aisle, several stumbling as they leaned back to look at the floating candles and enchanted ceiling, others flinching away from the curious gazes of the older students, many of whom were craning to get a look at them. A couple of them - muggleborns, Harry assumed, and tried to make a mental note of them - waved at Gwen, who sent them dazzling smiles in return.

Harry spotted Rose first, and Albus came immediately thereafter, leaning forward to whisper something in his cousin’s ear. Harry groaned as he got a better look at him.

"What is it?" Penelope asked.

"He’s wearing the camera," Harry replied, then shook his head at Penelope’s questioning look, the memory of a bright-eyed and over-eager first year clouding his vision as Albus snapped pictures of the crowd.

Harry didn’t catch sight of Scorpius until he stepped up onto the dais, a tiny figure with white-blond hair sandwiched between a pair of unfamiliar girls. He exchanged a look with Draco that Harry couldn’t begin to read before the line swerved and he was swept toward the far end of the table.

Rose and Al had wound up nearby, just in front of Blaise, and Harry smiled gently at Rose as she nodded politely at him over her shoulder, her freckled face tight with nerves. Al ignored him in favour of taking pictures and exchanging waves with the knot of his cousins sitting at the Gryffindor table, which continued until Rose gave him a very stern look as Neville was setting up the Sorting Hat. Albus stuffed his hands into his pockets with an audible humph. Harry shivered minutely. Rose’s glare was like Hermione’s and Molly Weasley’s all rolled into one unbelievably severe package.

The hat’s song was cheerful and mostly about the house traits, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Even though things seemed peaceful in Wizarding Britain, tensions were high in the outside world, and Harry feared someday hearing another sorting song like the one he’d heard at the beginning of his fifth year, full of warnings of the world crumbling around their ears. Everyone burst into applause as the hat finished singing, and it bowed to each of the four tables before growing still again.

"When I call your name," Neville addressed the line of stiff and fidgeting first years, "come put on the hat and sit - _sit_ ," he emphasized, and glanced at the Gryffindor table, where Lucy and Roxanne Weasley were exchanging wide grins, "-on the stool to be sorted." Harry shook his head and tried to bite down on a smile. Those two were trouble to the core. Their sorting had been funny, at least. Neville paused, looking for just a moment almost as nervous as the first years, then read out, "Areleous, Anemone!"

A blonde girl stepped shakily out from near the centre of the line and moved to the stool. She removed her own hat - Harry noted that most of the first-years had remembered to wear their hats this year - before sitting and placing the Sorting Hat on her head. There there was a pause of several seconds before,

"RAVENCLAW!" shouted the hat.

The Ravenclaw table burst into applause and cheers as Anemone placed the hat back on the stool and trotted off to sit with them, a look of elation on her face. Harry settled back into his chair as the Sorting got underway. "Argall, Eirian!" became the year’s first Gryffindor, and "Brinkerhoff, Orion!", who had very large ears which the Hat caught on, became the first Slytherin. "Chandler, Grace!" nearly tripped over her own feet twice before making it down to the Hufflepuff table. Harry thought she was one of the muggleborn children who had waved to Gwen earlier, and doubled up on his mental note to watch out for her in particular.

"Eaton, Xylina!" turned out to be one of the girls standing beside Scorpius, and he looked positively stricken as she marched to the stool, dark pigtails switching. The hat was barely on her head when it shouted,

"SLYTHERIN!"

She sprang back up and nearly skipped off in the direction of the Slytherin table, casting a delighted smile at Scorpius as she passed. Harry looked at Draco.

"His cousin?"

Draco shook his head, squinting at the girl as she sat beside some fourth years. "No," he replied, face an odd mix of relief and confusion. "I don’t know who she is."

A few children later, "Greengrass, Lark!" was called, and Draco murmured,

"That’s his cousin," to Harry as the girl all but ran to the stool in her eagerness. The hat took rather a long time to place her, finally announcing,

"RAVENCLAW!"

A dozen sortings flew by. Around the time a sour-faced girl named "Jackson, Abigail!" was met with boos from several of the other first years, Albus included, Harry noticed that Draco’s hands, folded on the table, were growing tighter and more white-knuckled with every passing name, though his face remained placid. Harry heard him take in a sharp breath as "Longstaff, Bran!" joined the Ravenclaw table, and let it out again when "Lu, Min!" was called next.

"He’ll be fine," Harry murmured as Min was declared a Gryffindor. Draco made a noncommittal sound in response, and didn’t remove his attention from Scorpius. Harry couldn’t blame him. A nervous knot was beginning to form in his own chest as Al’s turn with the Hat neared.

"Malfoy, Scorpius!"

The hall grew minutely quieter as Neville called the name. Scorpius looked outright peaky as he approached the stool with halting steps. The Hat slipped down over his eyes, and Harry waited.

…and waited…

After some time, Draco was forced to let go of the breath he’d been holding since Scorpius’ name was called. Harry sent him a sympathetic look that he didn’t think Draco saw. Scorpius looked so small on the stool, the Hat covering him nearly to his chin. Had Draco been so small at that age? He didn’t remember that being the case, but then he had been a small child himself, and it wasn’t as though he’d had much of a chance to observe Draco sitting on the sorting stool. He still had a surprisingly vivid memory of the Hat’s scream of ‘Slytherin’ the second it had touched Draco’s head.

Harry wasn’t sure how long it had been by the time his attention began wandering, and his eyes slid over to his own son. Albus was looking about the room, a frown on his face as he absently fingered the camera hanging around his neck. His face turned from the house tables to peek at the teachers seated behind him. It didn’t seem as though he and Scorpius had met on the train, though Ron had pointed out Draco and Scorpius on the platform. Beside him, Rose chewed on her lower lip while staring at Scorpius with a sharp, narrow gaze.

Harry’s eyes wandered as Albus stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned over to whisper in Rose’s ear. The students down at the tables were beginning to grow impatient as well. Whispers hissed all over the hall, and most of those still staring up at Scorpius were doing so with glassy eyes. At the Gryffindor table, Lucy and Roxanne were no longer paying any attention at all, whispering animatedly while their cousin Dominique, a brand-new Prefect, made no effort to cease their conversation.

Harry peered at Draco out of the corners of his eyes. Draco was stiffening impossibly with each passing second, his calm expression having tightened into something more like alarm. There was a slight tremor moving through his hands where they remained clasped on the table, knuckles and fingernails all pressed white. Harry was fairly certain that if Draco became any more stiff, he’d petrify, and he wasn’t sure if Neville had any mandrakes growing in Greenhouse Three at the moment.

Harry was just exchanging glances with Blaise across Draco when the hat finally shouted,

"SLYTHERIN!"

The collective exhalation that swept across the room as Scorpius shakily got to his feet and tottered off toward his friend with the pigtails almost drowned out the paltry applause, and very effectively masked the quiet whimper that escaped Draco’s lips as the tension drained out of his body like someone had pulled a plug. He looked like he’d aged ten years from sheer stress alone, wrinkles Harry hadn’t noticed before stark on his face in the candlelight. He nodded to Scorpius when the boy looked up at him.

"A Hatstall," Penelope murmured on Harry’s other side as "Maradona, Noelia!" was called forward.

"Was he really?" Harry asked, though to be honest he couldn’t ever recall someone’s sorting taking quite so long. There were always a few that took their time in every year, and the word Hatstall was tossed around, but Harry had never witnessed an actual one.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat shouted in the background, and Harry clapped absently.

"That was over five and a half minutes," Penelope replied, then paused to clap as "Nejem, Suha!" was made a Ravenclaw.

"Were you timing it?"

Penelope leaned back in her chair just enough to let Harry see the empty chair at her other side, where Neville would sit for the feast. Above the seat of the chair floated a charmed pocket watch with its chain attached to a quill. As "Ness, Lewis!" was pronounced a Slytherin, a faint shimmer of light ran down the golden chain and the quill scratched a figure onto a sheet of parchment laying on the chair’s seat.

"I’m doing a little bit of a research project," she said in response to Harry’s raised brow and quirked lips. "Just out of curiosity." Harry smiled and shook his head rather fondly, turning back to the proceedings.

Albus’ sorting was approaching quickly, "North, Melody!" and "O’Hannagain, Sophie!" being sent off to their tables with little delay. Harry watched as Albus stared at "Ollivander, Salacia!" as she drifted off toward the Slytherin table, his eyes glazing over as he stared into the middle distance while Paquet, Pendragon, and Peterson passed by. As Peterson joined the Ravenclaw table, Albus tensed minutely.

"Potter, Albus!"

A great deal of whispering suddenly broke out around the hall as Albus strode over to the stool. Lucy and Roxanne were already cheering for him over with the Gryffindors, and out of the corner of his eye Harry could see Dominique berate them from down the table. Albus sat on the stool, took a deep breath, and set the hat on his head.

Harry held his breath.

Albus was relaxed as he sat there. So he wasn’t an instant choice? _Okay_ , Harry said to himself, okay, he had guessed that would be the case. Harry’s hands fisted nervously in his lap regardless. Albus had been so _worried_ he’d be sorted into Slytherin, earlier that day, and Harry, to be honest - to be more honest about his thoughts about Albus’ sorting than he’d ever been - was not entirely sure Albus wouldn’t be.

Albus sat on the stool for perhaps a little over half a minute before he startled, just slightly - Harry’s heart skipped in his chest - and then relaxed again. Harry leaned forward.

"SLYTHERIN!"

The word rang in Harry’s ears long after it had ceased echoing in the hall, an uncharacteristic silence having descended over the room. A very long moment passed, and Harry could see Albus looking over to the Gryffindor table, to his cousins and to James, but Harry couldn’t quite drag his eyes away from Albus to see their reactions for himself. Then, with no warning whatsoever, the Slytherin table exploded into applause. The cheering was the loudest that night by far, shouting and whistling and stomping to a nearly deafening level. Albus made a move toward them, then paused, throwing a look back over his shoulder at Harry. He was grinning.

Something inside Harry clicked. Harry grinned back. He had only barely brought his hands together in a clap when Albus, green eyes bright, turned around and trotted off toward the Slytherin table.

Harry continued to watch Albus even as the sorting got back underway. He’d sat at the very near end of the table, where the Head Boy had budged up to make room between himself and one of the first year boys - not Scorpius. That one had been called Brinkerhoff, perhaps, Harry thought. Albus smirked and waved at Rose, and Rose jolted and crossed her arms tightly, gnawing on her lower lip in earnest. Harry hoped that Albus and Rose weren’t going to fall out over this. He didn’t know if he could handle it if both James _and_ Albus were on the outs with their best-friends-slash-cousins at the same time.

Harry’s eyes drifted over to the Gryffindor table. All of the Weasleys, plus James, plus their closest friends, had their heads together, some leaning halfway across the table, all discussing something vigorously. Harry resisted the urge to run his hands through his hair. He _desperately_ hoped that Albus wasn’t about to fall out with _all of his cousins_ over this. Considering the looks Molly was sending up to him from time to time, Harry would be surprised if she didn’t knock on the door of his quarters the moment curfew let up.

They were down to the last few now, with only Rose and one other standing by as the Hat pondered where to put "Underwood, Elgar!"

Down at the Slytherin table, Albus was fiddling with his camera, but paused to clap along with his peers when the hat shouted,

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Victors, Jack!"

A boy with light brown skin sat on the stool, leaving Rose as the very last child standing. Rose had graduated from crossing her arms to wringing her hands, her posture immaculate but stiff. The expression on her face was nothing less than absolute terror.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Rose’s blue gaze flicked over her shoulder to Harry as Jack stumbled off the dais. Harry gave her another gentle smile, and she missed the sympathetic look Neville sent her way.

"Weasley, Rose!"

Rose’s walk to the stool was shaky, at best. Down at the Gryffindor table, the Weasleys had suspended their conversation, and all eyes were on Rose. From his seat, Albus appeared to be snapping photographs of his cousin as she placed the hat on her head. Despite the tension weaving its way through the air, Harry smiled. He’d have to see if he could get a copy of one of those for Ron and Hermione.

Rose sat on the stool for about two strained, unusually silent minutes before the hat finally exclaimed,

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry could see her cast one last look at Albus where he sat applauding for her before she walked off to sit by Victoire. Molly tousled her hair as she passed, and Lucy and Roxanne gave her high-fives.

By the time she had settled, Neville had cleared away the Sorting Hat and stool, and Minerva was getting to her feet. The knot of worry in Harry’s chest unraveled a bit as he watched her look over the occupants of the Great Hall, the slight smile on her face warm despite her stern features.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts," she said, spreading her hands in greeting. "As always, the longer announcements are better left until after the feast. However, we do have one item of import. As our older students all know, Professor Flitwick retired at the end of last term. Therefore, today we have three new appointments to announce.

"First, I would like to formally congratulate Professor Longbottom, who many of you will have already realised is our new Deputy Headmaster." The hall burst into raucous applause, Harry joining in as he looked past Penelope to Neville, whose face was slightly pink.

"Second," Minerva continued when the applause had begun to abate, "I am happy to announce that our new Head of Ravenclaw House is Professor Clearwater." This time, it was mostly the Ravenclaws who applauded, but they did so almost as loudly as the entire hall had moments before. Beside Harry, Penelope grinned as she waved down at her house.

"Finally," Minerva said when the room had once again quieted, "It is my pleasure to introduce to you all your new Charms Master, Professor Malfoy." Harry held his breath for a split second, but it wasn’t necessary - the applause for Draco was less boisterous than it had been for Neville or Penelope, but it was there. Harry noticed that there were a few students not clapping at all, particularly among the older ones, who had started their lives with parents still recovering from the war, but for the most part the students clapped as they would have for any other new teacher. Harry clapped as well, smile wide as he looked to Draco. Draco, who appeared mildly stunned at his reception. His eyes swept the house tables, then the high table, landing on Harry last of all. There was colour high in his cheeks, and wasn’t it sort of funny, Harry thought, that the warmth spreading through his bones was because of Draco Malfoy, of all people.

"I believe that’s all for now," Minerva said as the applause waned and the hum of conversation began to take its place, "so please, enjoy!" With that, the golden serving dishes running down the centre of every table filled with food.

Draco laughed as Harry just sat without serving himself.

"Merlin, Potter, you look exhausted."

Harry felt it, a bit. The tension of the Sorting, combined with the long day, combined with the looming possibility he might have to referee a Weasley cousins family fight, was all weighing on him somewhat. Still, when Harry looked, he could see the worry line between Draco’s eyebrows that hadn’t left since Scorpius’ long turn on the stool, and he grinned.

"Yeah? You’re looking pretty beat yourself, Malfoy." Draco grinned back.

"Yes, yes," Blaise said, and rolled his eyes. "You’re both individuals who tend toward worry and you look dreadful. Pass the lamb, if you would?"

* * *

Word of Albus’ sorting spread quickly - both within the family and without. Harry received five floo calls from assorted concerned family members on September second, though none from Hermione, Ron, or Ginny - he’d called them all the moment he got back to his rooms the night before to tell them where Albus and Rose had been placed. Ron, apparently torn between pride at Rose’s sorting and mild shock at Albus’, had landed on bemused joy, and neither Hermione nor Ginny seemed in the least bit surprised.

The Weasley cousin quarrel almost came to a head, with Molly and James both paying Harry a visit in his quarters the morning after the sorting. On the morning of the third, however, the Prophet ran an exposé about the "shocking and shameful sorting of Harry Potter’s youngest son into the house of snakes and dark wizards" on the front page of their Sunday edition. Monday morning they issued a retraction and apology, citing an avalanche of outraged letters from the Weasley clan and friends. Harry spotted Molly smugly reading the apology to Fred and Dominique over breakfast, and after that the trouble seemed to mostly fizzle away.

Albus, for his part, seemed mostly oblivious to the turmoil. Slytherin fit him like a glove, and he occupied himself in getting to know nearly half the House, so far as Harry could tell by watching him from the high table at mealtimes. That wasn’t to say that he was ignoring his cousins, however. To the contrary, Harry and Tracey soon found their hands full with complaints from Weasleys and James that Albus’ Slytherin yearmates were making appearances in the Gryffindor common room, and similar gripes from Slytherins about Weasleys appearing in theirs.

Abigail Jackson, who was so mean that even Albus hadn’t attempted to make friends with her, was so incensed by outsiders in the Slytherin dungeon for the first time in over seven centuries that Tracey wound up changing the common room password five times in two weeks in the middle of September, and yet always the word got out. The irony of the situation was so thick that on the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year, when Tracey slumped into her chair at the Three Broomsticks between Harry and Draco and told the table at large that she’d received another three complaints that very day about nothing more than Rose reading a book sitting on one of the common room sofas, Harry found himself saying,

"Let me tell you a story," and relaying the events of the Polyjuice Potion incident of second year to an increasingly delighted audience of his colleagues, with the exception of Draco, whose squawking litany of,

"You what? You _what?_ " nearly drew attention from the tables of students surrounding them.

After that, and after a meeting with Minerva and the other Heads of House, they decided to take a different approach.

"Sorry, Roxy, but unless they’re actually causing a disturbance, there’s nothing I can do. You know I’m not actually the Head of Gryffindor anyway, right? That’s Professor Longbottom."

"But, but," Roxanne argued back as Harry kept his head bent over his work, "you’re Al’s dad! And they weren’t even _with_ Al this time! I don’t complain about Al coming ‘round, ‘cause he’s Al, but who even is this Brinkerhoff kid? And that Eaton girl is snotty. And a Malfoy, of all people?"

"Wait, Scorpius Malfoy?" Harry replied, finally looking up from the essay he’d been grading.

"See, see! You understand the gravity of the situation now."

"No, sorry, Scorpius Malfoy is subject to the same rules as everyone else. I was just a little surprised. Who was he there to see?"

"Rose, obviously," Roxanne said with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. Then, before Harry had time to consider that, Roxanne’s face crumpled and she implored him in a wobbling whinge, "Uncle Harry, pleeeasee!"

"Nope!" Harry replied cheerfully, then bent back over his work as Roxanne made an indignant sound of protest. "Also, if I recall correctly, Professor Davis was telling me she received several complaints about you and Lucy in the Slytherin dungeon just yesterday." Harry peered at Roxanne over his glasses. Roxanne paled slightly, stammered something about homework, and fled his office.

"So I hear that Scorpius has made friends with Rose," Harry said to Draco later that evening, upon encountering him browsing the fiction section of the library. If Harry had paused for a moment at the end of the aisle to take in the way Draco’s hair was falling softly about his face, well, that was neither here nor there, really.

"I was starting to think he might have," Draco replied in a whisper. "He’s mentioned her a couple of times now. She encourages the Ravenclaw in him, not that he needs much encouragement." Harry shared a smile with Draco at that. Only a few weeks into term and Harry had already seen Scorpius lugging around books as large and numerous as Hermione had back at school, and he always had his hand in the air in class, be it to answer questions or to ask them.

"I’ve been meaning to ask, has he told you how he talked the Hat around? Nev and I were talking with Penelope about the Sorting process, because she’s working on that project, and we sort of got into it a little over it. In my experience, the Hat will take your choice into account, but Neville says there’s no point arguing with the Hat, that it’ll place you where it wants."

Draco pursed his lips and studied Harry, considering. "I’ll tell you, Potter, but don’t go spreading it around. He may well have told me in confidence." Harry nodded, and Draco continued. "According to Scorpius, he put the Hat on his head and said to it, ‘Slytherin, please,’ then laid out his entire memorised argument. The Hat wanted to place him in Ravenclaw. Scorpius didn’t budge, however, and after a long argument, the Hat put him in Slytherin. He isn’t sure what made it change its mind, it had been arguing for Ravenclaw only moments before."

"That sounds a lot like the story Nev told, but the Hat put him in Gryffindor in the end anyway."

"I can’t speak for Longbottom," Draco said after a long, thoughtful moment, "but I do have a theory about Scorpius. He was apparently unwavering in his demand for Slytherin, and out of all the houses, the only one which _doesn’t_ have some variation of ‘resolve’ for a trait is Ravenclaw."

"Wait. So you think…" Harry had to break off to chuckle. "You think that the reason Scorpius was put in Slytherin is that he literally out-stubborned the Hat? That he proved his Slytherin-ness was stronger than his… Ravenclaw-ness through sheer force of will?"

Draco looked a little smug. "Quite."

Harry had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing loudly enough to draw Millicent’s ire. "That’s brilliant," he said when he got himself under control. "I genuinely love it. Would’ve made for a really decent Gryffindor, too."

"My turn to ask a question," Draco said, and when Harry looked at him he found grey eyes raking over his face. "You mentioned your experience with the Hat. That you made a choice. Did it _really_ consider anything but Gryffindor for you? You’re like the living, breathing embodiment of Gryffindor house."

Harry shook his head, smiling even as his heart stuttered slightly in his chest. " _Neville_ is the living, breathing embodiment of Gryffindor. The Hat wanted to put _me_ in Slytherin."

There was a split second in which Harry got to enjoy the shock blooming across Draco’s face, his eyes widening and mouth falling open, before Draco squawked, "It _WHAT_?" and Millicent’s sharp tones snapped out across the library like a whip,

"Professors Potter and Malfoy, kindly vacate the library until you are ready to speak quietly, thank you."

A wave of tittering rose up from the tables of students, which only grew louder as Harry and Draco emerged from the stacks. Harry spotted James among them. Just before Harry turned the corner out of the library, he saw James stuff his fist in his mouth, freckled face red with the exertion of stifling his laughter.

September passed thusly, and then the month ended with the Slytherin Seeker, a seventh-year named Kit Arterberry, choosing Albus as her protégé and the reserve Seeker for the Slytherin team, and a whole new mess of problems carried them through October.


	2. Fireplaces and Tea

"Oh _Merlin_ , that was a long one," Tracey groaned, stretching her arms above her head as the last students trickled out of the Great Hall after the Halloween feast. One of the bats swooping around the hall circled her outstretched hands a few times, and she waved it off.

"Even longer next year," Gwen replied. "You know there’ll be some who stick around until we hear who’s been picked for Triwizard Champion off at Beauxbatons."

"Oh _Merlin_ ," Tracey repeated, and dropped her hands to her face.

"Don’t even talk about next year," Neville pleaded from halfway down the table. "I’m not ready yet. I’ll be running the school for almost the entire year while Minerva’s away. Somebody be my Assistant Deputy Headmaster, please."

"Oh, me! That’s me, I will do that," Millicent called out.

Neville swung an arm out to point at her. "Done. You are now Assistant Deputy Headmistress. Thank you."

"I’m holding you to that," Millicent replied.

"I’m holding _you_ to that," Neville shot back.

Harry sat quietly among the buzz of his colleagues’ chatter, tired and content. Halloween was a much bigger production for the staff than the students, what with all the setup, and he was grateful that the House Elves would be doing the cleanup. He smiled at Minerva as she passed by on her way out of the hall, and she sent a smile back. It was warm. Harry _felt_ warm. Sure, he would be going back to empty rooms again tonight, but right now, right here, he loved this mismatched group of friends, and that was real and good.

"Anyone for drinks in the teachers’ lounge before bed?" Blaise asked, standing and sweeping his eyes over everyone. Several people chimed in their interest, Neville and Tracey both included, but when Blaise turned to him and asked, "How about you, Potter?" Harry frowned and hesitated.

"I dunno, I’m pretty knackered."

"Draco?"

"All right," Draco replied, standing. "Not for too long, though, we’ve class in the morning."

Blaise looked back at Harry and raised an eyebrow as if to say, ‘How about now?’ Harry felt his face heat. Sure, he’d maybe, _possibly_ , developed something of a crush on Draco over the last couple months. The man was incredibly handsome and a loving father, who could really blame him? Was he being _obvious_ about it, though?

Draco paused by Blaise and looked from Blaise to Harry and back again, eyeing their staring match with a wary expression.

Harry bit his lip. Spending more time with everyone _did_ sound good, especially compared to going back to his quarters where there was no Ginny, no James, no Albus, not even Lily waiting for him there. It wasn’t as though a lot of his family wasn’t right here at Hogwarts with him, but it wasn’t the same, and the darker and colder the days got the lonelier he seemed to feel. His eyes flicked over to Draco.

"Okay. Just for a bit."

The gathering was small, ultimately - seven of them crowded into the armchairs and sofas around the teachers’ lounge fireplace. A bottle of a spicy liqueur Harry didn’t recognize was produced, glasses were conjured, and the bottle passed around and around. Everything was very warm and close and quiet, and Harry was nearly nodding off onto Neville’s shoulder when Gwen suddenly said,

"Hey Neville, truth or dare?"

Harry shook himself back awake while Millicent laughed. "What are we, fourth-years?"

Gwen shrugged, firelight glinting off of her teeth when she grinned.

Neville huffed a laugh. "Okay, sure. Dare."

"Show it to us." When Neville turned bright red, Gwen quickly clarified, "The _infamous_ tattoo, I mean."

Neville remained red, but rolled his eyes and started unbuttoning his robe. "No laughing. It’s a bit stupid, but I still like it."

Most everyone still laughed anyway, at least a little, when the word ‘Gryffindor’ was revealed in twining vines and leaves and twigs. It wasn’t a bad tattoo, really, and Harry had seen it before, but,

"A _tramp stamp_ ," Tracey hooted. "Oh Nev, I love you, but _why?_ "

"I was eighteen," Neville shot back defensively, but he was smiling around his glare. He pulled his robe back up and said, "Tracey, truth or dare."

Tracey had to admit that she’d had a crush on Hermione back in school ("Teaching her the year after the war was _so awkward_ ,"), then Draco had to sing a Christmas carol after breathing from a conjured helium balloon (Harry laughed so hard that he almost spilled his drink), then Blaise recounted his first kiss (delightfully awful), and then Millicent did a series of brilliant impressions of everyone in the room, which had them all nearly falling out of their chairs laughing.

"Okay, Potter, truth or dare?"

Harry, who had still been chortling over Millicent’s rendition of Blaise, stopped immediately when he caught sight of Millicent’s face. She was smirking at him, eyes sharp and smug, and Harry knew that whatever he chose, he was probably a bit fucked. "Er…" he said, twisting his empty glass in his hands. He wasn’t sure he could do anything too strenuous if she dared him to - he really was tired - but truth was dangerous in its own way. Everything had been fairly tame so far, but Millicent had something up her sleeve. He could tell.

"Come on, pick one."

"…Dare, I guess."

Millicent sat back in her armchair, smirk firmly in place, and waved dismissively at Draco. "Kiss ‘im." Tracey choked on her drink at the same time as Gwen and Blaise chorused an "ooooh" in unison. Harry was pretty sure he was not drunk enough for the room to feel so sideways.

"Salazar help me, we really are in fourth year again," Draco muttered, sending Millicent a look that made Harry’s insides twist. Draco stood, arms crossed. Harry remained solidly glued to his place on the couch.

"Not standing," Millicent commented offhandedly as if she was directing them in a play. "Draco, switch with Longbottom."

Neville shot Millicent a thoroughly unimpressed look, but nevertheless got up and took Draco’s former seat beside Gwen. Draco remained standing.

"You want us to do a _sitting_ kiss? Those are always awkward."

"Then make it not awkward. Besides," Millicent dropped into a low drawl, "are you saying that you want to _enjoy_ kissing Potter?"

Harry would have glared at Millicent for that one, perhaps even told her where she could stick her dare, but he was a little too preoccupied with watching as Draco sent her a withering look instead.

"You could get on his lap," Gwen suggested. Draco didn’t reply, but stood eyeing Harry with a complicated expression on his face. Harry could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.

"Yeah, Draco, you could ride-" Blaise began, but Draco cut him off with a sharp,

"Don’t push your luck."

Finally, he sat beside Harry on the couch, his posture somewhat stiff and hands folded neatly in his lap.

"I hate to break it to you two, but that is not _quite_ kissing," Millicent said. Draco let out an annoyed huff and opened his mouth to reply, but Millicent went on before he could begin. "Potter," Harry startled just slightly, and he heard Tracey cough to avoid outright laughing at him, the traitor, "put your arms around his neck and kiss him."

Harry mumbled something indistinct in response and awkwardly turned toward Draco, who looked just as awkward as he turned to face Harry. Harry scooted closer. He started to raise one arm, but paused, heart hammering in his chest. "Er," he murmured, "are you all right with this? I mean, it’s _my_ dare, you don’t have to-"

"It’s fine, Potter, I’m-" Draco hesitated, mouthing bits of words, teetering on the brink of telling Harry something that Harry was pretty sure he wanted to know, but then shook his head and repeated, "It’s fine. I’d have put a stop to it already if it wasn’t."

"Right," Harry replied, and slowly slipped his arms around Draco’s neck. He could feel Draco’s hands find his waist, and he wondered, as his heart thundered in his ears, if it was all right for his heart to be beating quite that hard. His eyes slipped shut.

The first touch of lips was cautious, and Draco flinched just slightly, but before Harry could react Draco’s lips were sealed over his and all the coherent thoughts in his head were being crowded out by _soft_ and _warm_ and _Draco_.

Harry wasn’t sure for how long they kissed. He knew it was long enough for Draco’s hands to slide up his back and his whole body to shiver in response. It was long enough for their mouths to open - Draco tasted like the spicy liqueur, of course. It was long enough for every one of Harry’s nerve endings to catch flame.

By the time they pulled apart, heaving air and lightheaded, the reactions from the others that Harry had only vaguely registered as they were happening - the whistles and cheers and low, wondering "ohhh"s - had all ceased. Harry looked around. Neville’s eyes were wide, but a slight smile played about his lips. Tracey stared into the middle distance, face red. Millicent and Blaise, side-by-side in their armchairs, wore identical smug expressions.

"Wow," Gwen said. Then again, "wow."

It was funny, Harry wasn’t quite sure who started it, but then he and Draco were laughing, bubbling over. It wasn’t as though Harry was an unhappy person, but it had been a long while since he’d last felt joy quite so strong and so bright. It was like the tiny little something that had planted itself in his chest when he’d met Draco again in August had bloomed into a miniature sun.

Draco’s arms slipped away from Harry as their laughter eventually tapered off, and he leaned back against the cushions. One of Harry’s arms, still around Draco’s neck, dropped to rest behind Draco along the back of the couch. Harry gave a little squeeze, and Draco quirked his lips at him.

"Merlin," Draco said on a sigh, "I suppose I needed that."

"No, really?" Blaise drawled, and Draco rolled his eyes and shook his head, but didn’t stop smiling. Harry felt warm right down to his core.

"Okay, Gwen," Harry said, "truth or dare?"

* * *

The first Quidditch match of the year was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, as usual. Not so much as usual, Harry found his family playing against itself, though as the reserve Seeker, Albus sat on the bench the entire game. There were, nevertheless, several moments where Harry wondered if Albus would have to take the field as Lucy and Roxanne, the new Gryffindor Beaters, hit Bludger after Bludger at Arterberry, the Slytherin Seeker. The game was nearly evenly matched, both teams the strongest they’d been in years, but in the end Arterberry caught the Snitch and Slytherin won.

Harry waded into the crowd as the students descended on the field, congratulating any players he met. James scowled and pulled away from Harry’s clap on the shoulder, saying,

"We lost, you know," but Lucy and Roxanne beamed up at him, their freckled faces bright.

"Thanks, Uncle Harry!"

"Arterberry was a little much for a first go at a real game, but we’ll win the next one for sure!"

"Who’s next? Hufflepuff?"

"Yeah, we’ll have to work against Oakley, he’s an ace Beater, but their Seeker’s only a second-year."

" _We’re_ only second-years."

"Well yeaaah, but-"

"Scorpius!!" called out an unmistakable voice, cutting across Lucy and Roxanne’s chatter. Harry looked over just in time to see Albus nearly tackle Scorpius to the ground about ten feet away. "We did it! For your birthday! Happy birthday!!"

" _You_ didn’t do _anything_ ," Rose teased, and Albus turned to her.

For just a second, as Albus, Rose, and Scorpius leaned their heads together, all grinning fit to split their faces in half, Harry saw a different trio of first-years and knew, suddenly and with absolute certainty, how much trouble the three of them were going to cause. Then the moment broke and Harry saw Brinkerhoff and Eaton and Rose’s Gryffindor friends all crowded up with them, and Arterberry ruffling Albus’ hair as she passed by, and a pair of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first-years wishing Scorpius a happy birthday and exchanging fist-bumps before being swept away by the crowd, and Harry changed his mind. Those three weren’t going to be as much trouble as he, Ron, and Hermione had been, because it wasn’t just the three of them - they were going to be so, so much worse.

November flew by in a whirlwind of Quidditch and classes and troublesome students. Harry and Draco didn’t kiss again, but what they did do was talk and talk and talk. They sat adjacent at meals. They spent time on free evenings with others in the teachers’ lounge or alone in Draco’s office or side-by-side on the couch in Harry’s quarters. They got kicked out of the library half a dozen more times.

Harry learned about how Draco and Astoria had met and how she died. He told Draco about the distance that had grown between himself and Ginny and led to their divorce, with him always at Hogwarts and her on the road with the Harpies. Draco updated Harry on how Narcissa had been since the war, and Harry told a near-endless stream of stories about various Weasleys. They talked, most of all, about their children.

By the time December rolled around, Ron and Hermione knew something was up.

"Mate," Ron said one Sunday afternoon as they sat in Harry’s quarters playing chess while the first heavy snow of the year fell outside. Professional Quidditch was on winter break and Ginny was home, so Ron and Hermione had come around to visit with her at Grimmauld Place. Considering that the floo had already been open so that Lily could come through and see Harry when she pleased, it wasn’t too much of a surprise that Ron had ended up coming through as well. Every five minutes or so, Lily and Hugo would burst out of the open floo connection, shrieking with laughter, then run back through to the other side again. If Harry squinted into the flames, he could just barely see that it wasn’t snowing in London.

Harry looked up at Ron, but he was staring at the board, brow furrowed in thought. "Yeah?"

"Are you seeing someone?" Ron asked without looking away from the board.

"Er," Harry replied articulately. Ron looked up.

"You’ve just seemed different lately, is all. Hermione thinks so too."

"Good different or bad different?"

"Good, good," Ron assured quickly. "Like, happier? Not that you really seemed _sad_ before. Bit lonely, maybe."

"Er," Harry said again. "Yeah, I mean no, I mean… maybe? Sort of? We haven’t really talked about it, and I mean we only, uh…" What _were_ he and Draco in relation to each other? Colleagues who were getting to know each other better? Former rivals who had grown out of it? Friends who kissed that one time? Of all the things they’d spent hours and hours talking their way through, their own relationship wasn’t one of them.

Honestly, though there had been moments - a lot of moments - where Harry had glanced at Draco and his heart skipped a beat, he had held back. Harry’s life was stable and had been for a while (as stable as life could be with three children under the age of fourteen, that is), but Draco had lost Astoria just a couple of years ago, and then had upended his whole life in order to come to Hogwarts. Harry didn’t want to pressure him to do more if he wasn’t ready or interested, and it wasn’t like he wasn’t happy with the friendship they were building. It was the sort of friendship where every so often Harry would look over at Draco and his fingers would twitch to reach out, or his breath would catch in his chest, and that was a little unusual, sure, but it was fine.

"Mate," Ron said, pulling Harry back out of his thoughts. He had a particular look on his face, part amused and part resigned, and Harry knew that Ron knew already. "It’s Malfoy, isn’t it?"

Harry sucked a breath in between his teeth, looking off toward the fireplace and only meeting Ron’s eyes sideways. "Yeah."

Ron sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and looked back at the chess board. "Part of me was still hoping it was Tracey, or… that blonde one-"

"Gwen?"

"-or even some kind of threesome with Neville and Hannah-"

"What."

"-but I knew it was Malfoy, really."

Harry began laughing into his hand.

"Ginny offered to bet on it, but I couldn’t take the bet. Knew I would’ve lost."

"Ron, oh my god," Harry said best as he could around his laughter. Ron’s façade broke and he grinned.

"Yes, Harry?" he asked with mock sweetness.

"Did you honestly consider that I might’ve gotten together with Nev and Hannah?"

Ron snorted. "You? Nah." He paused, thoughtful, while Lily and Hugo came flying out of the floo and ran back in again. " _Maybe_."

" _Ron_ ," Harry laughed.

"Hey, no judgement here," Ron replied, raising his hands in a show of innocence. "But seriously, now that you’re thinking about it, try to figure out what you’re doing with Malfoy before hols or else you’ll be a mess."

"Er, thank you, Ron. That was very… Hermione-ish of you."

"I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment."

Harry chuckled and shook his head and Ron let the subject drop, but after that Harry couldn’t quite get Draco out of his head, and he had to grudgingly admit that Ron was right. If he didn’t want it to bother him over Christmas, he needed to find out what he and Draco were doing.

Of course, Harry thought as he peered at Draco over dinner that night, eyes tracing his sharp profile and heart fluttering in his chest, the problem with that was that there was a chance he’d be going home for the holidays with the brand-new and indisputable knowledge that Draco didn’t want a relationship with him. It seemed like there was a decent chance of that being the outcome, too - sure, they’d kissed the once, but it was on a dare, and they hadn’t done it again. They sat close together on couches, sometimes with Harry’s arm draped over the back of the seat behind Draco, but that wasn’t anything he didn’t do with Hermione or Luna or Tracey, and Neville sometimes did it with _him_.

That sent Harry’s thoughts off onto a series of tangents about Neville and attraction and the difference between platonic and romantic expressions of affection, such that he forgot he was staring and Draco eventually caught him looking. None of the things Harry would have hoped to ask were anything he really wanted to address at dinner, though, and Harry mumbled something about being lost in thought that was almost not a lie, Draco’s confused frown remaining on him even as he turned away.

* * *

The entire week, Harry failed to broach the subject with Draco. On Monday he had grading to catch up on that he’d put off to play chess with Ron the day before. On Tuesday, it was Draco who had work he needed to do. Wednesday evening everyone decided to nip down to the Three Broomsticks for a drink, and there wasn’t a private moment to be found. Thursday Harry had the perfect chance as they sat finishing their eggnog in the teachers’ lounge after everyone else had gone to bed - Harry looked over at Draco to find him already looking back. He opened his mouth, but his words got caught in his throat, and he ended up just smiling nervously at Draco instead.

On Friday evening Harry almost worked up the nerve to ask as they sat together on the couch in Harry’s quarters, his arm trailing along the back of the couch and almost brushing Draco’s shoulder, Draco’s smile on him, but then the floo flared and Lily burst through, crying that she’d somehow managed to make all the books in Harry’s study at home fly off the shelves like birds and they were trying to attack Mum and Mum was going to get hurt and it was all her fault and please please come help. Harry spent the rest of the evening (and a good chunk of the night, honestly) wrangling belligerent books and repairing the damage they’d caused. When he finally stumbled back through the floo he found Draco still on the couch, Lily curled up in his lap, both fast asleep. Harry’s heart squeezed. Draco woke when Harry scooped Lily into his arms. Lily didn’t stir.

"She got back out of bed the moment you left," he whispered. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, we got it sorted. Thanks for looking after her."

Draco shook his head. "She wasn’t any trouble." Draco yawned, swaying slightly now that he was on his feet. Harry wrapped his arms around Lily a little tighter and didn’t reach out. "Well, good night, Harry."

"Night, Draco."

Draco smiled blearily at him and left.

The day before the Hogwarts Express returned the students to Platform 9 3/4 for the Christmas holiday was a Hogsmeade Saturday. The streets of the village had been cleared, but the rooftops were piled high with snow. Every shopfront was bedecked in garlands of holly and bright, sparkling baubles, and little bits of Christmas music drifted out into the cold air when the doors of the shops were opened.

The streets were packed with excited students doing their holiday shopping or just having one last outing with their friends before they all returned home. Harry went as well, ostensibly as a chaperone, though there was rarely much trouble on these weekends, as no one wanted to lose their Hogsmeade privileges. Harry initially went with Tracey, the two of them spending the morning ducking in and out of Gladrags and Honeydukes and half a dozen other shops, laughing and singing along to the music and buying maybe a few too many sweets. Harry felt lighter than he had all week.

Just outside of the bookshop, however, they ran into Draco - almost literally, in fact, as they opened the door to enter the shop just as he was making to exit.

"Harry!" Draco exclaimed, then shoved the book in his hands behind his back.

"Hey," Harry replied, heart doing a flip in his chest. Was that what Harry thought it might be? Had Draco gotten him a present? Why would he be hiding it otherwise? He’d hoped Draco might, especially considering the Slytherin-silver scarf tucked away in Harry’s Gladrags bag.

A silence fell as they awkwardly stood face-to-face, Draco’s nose slowly turning pink from the cold and Harry’s brain unhelpfully focusing on that rather than providing him with any words to say. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tracey’s gaze sliding from him to Draco and back again.

"Well," Tracey said eventually, "I’m going to be a while looking at the books. Have you had lunch yet, Draco?"

"Hm?" Draco turned his eyes away from Harry with apparent reluctance and blinked at Tracey in confusion for a moment. "Oh, no I haven’t."

"You two should go on ahead and have lunch, then," Tracey said with a smile.

"We… should?" Harry replied. He’d been intending to scour the bookshop for a present for Hermione, not that it was so easy to buy books for her anymore, she had _so_ many, but… Harry’s gaze drifted back to Draco.

"You’re hungry, aren’t you?" Tracey asked, tone practical. Harry blinked at her. "Well then, you should go get lunch," she said without waiting for a proper answer. She waved her hands in a shooing motion. "Go on, then. I’ll catch up with you at the Three Broomsticks with everyone else later on." With that, Tracey gave them one last smile, turned in a billow of robes, and went into the bookshop.

Harry and Draco stood looking after her dumbly for a moment before Draco chuckled and turned to Harry. "Well then, Potter. Shall we?"

As it turned out, everyone else had had the same idea. The Three Broomsticks was chock-full, with a line waiting to get in stretching down the street. The cozy little café that had replaced the Hog’s Head a few years back was just as crowded.

"I suppose we’ll just have to wait," Harry said, eyeing the line of students dubiously. "Maybe stop by the Quidditch shop in the meantime?"

"Well, there is _one_ other place," Draco said, then looked like he regretted it instantly.

"There is?" Harry asked.

Draco cleared his throat, face pinker than before. "There is. I know you’ve been, I recall hearing stories."

"Wait. Are you suggesting-?"

Draco was suggesting exactly that.

Harry stood outside of Madam Puddifoot’s and tried to swallow the ball of nerves that had apparently decided to take up residence in his throat. He’d been back to the tea shop a couple of times over the years he’d been teaching, but only to break things up when an argument between students got out of hand, and he’d never stuck around afterwards. To be honest, part of him expected to walk through the doors and be showered with pink confetti by cherubs.

"And you say they do lunch here?" Harry asked. Through the frosted windows Harry could see that it was crowded inside, but there was no line.

Beside him, Draco cleared his throat. "Well, they did when we were in school," he mumbled, not meeting Harry’s eyes. "Best to ask, probably. After you?"

Harry took a deep breath and opened the door.

Madam Puddifoot’s was just as frilly as Harry remembered, but not nearly so pink. The curtains and tablecloths were all done up in rich Christmas reds and greens, and above the tables crisscrossed garlands of greenery laden with gold and silver baubles. Live fairies, glowing in a rainbow of colours, perched on the garlands and drifted between the tables. A gentle scent of pine, cinnamon, and peppermint wafted about the shop. It was over-the-top, and Harry honestly hadn’t expected any different, but… it wasn’t awful. It was Christmassy. Almost inviting.

Madam Puddifoot herself looked much the same as she had when Harry had been a student, but her hair was mostly grey now, and the skin around her eyes crinkled much more deeply when she smiled at them.

"Hello, dears. Need a place to get out of the cold?"

Merlin help him, Harry thought, he was so old that even Madam Puddifoot didn’t assume he was there on a date. The fact that Harry himself wasn’t entirely sure he was on a date either was of little consequence. It was the principle of the thing.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Do you still do lunch here?"

"We do. Table for two?" Harry didn’t say anything, but Draco must have nodded behind him, because Madam Puddifoot’s eye-crinkles deepened and she said, "Right this way."

Harry was extremely aware of the fact that every single customer in the shop - save for him and Draco - were his students. He tried very hard not to look at anyone as he waded between the tables behind Madam Puddifoot, and silently prayed that they were all so engrossed in their dates that no one was paying any attention to him and Draco, either. Madam Puddifoot produced two menus out of thin air as soon as they were seated, reassured them she’d be back soon, then bustled off to wait on another table.

"This… is not as bad as I remember," Draco said quietly after they had perused the menus for a while. "So long as I don’t look at the snogging teenagers, anyway. The Christmas decorations are almost… nice."

Harry chuckled and peered over the top of his menu at Draco, who caught him looking and pinked up. "I like that you suggested we go someplace you _didn’t_ have fond memories of."

"Yes, well," Draco said, sounding mildly flustered, "I missed breakfast. I wasn’t interested in waiting an hour just to get in someplace else."

Harry grinned behind his menu. The food here did sound good, luckily. A bit frilly - lots of little sandwiches and cakes and things - but not like anything he’d mind eating, since he was here already. When Madam Puddifoot returned they ordered sandwiches and decided to split a pot of the Christmas tea.

Things went well over lunch. They talked about how their students had been doing in class and the Christmas gifts they were getting for various friends and family. Draco laughed at him as he attempted to hide his face after spotting Molly at a table across the room making eyes at the Hufflepuff Beater, Titus Oakley. Draco was deep into a story about a Christmas when Pansy had visited him in France and given the then five-year-old Scorpius art supplies - and the (literal) glitter explosion that resulted - when he stopped mid-sentence, looking at Harry as if startled.

Harry lifted his chin from where it had been comfortably resting in his palm. "What?"

"No, sorry, it’s nothing- it’s- you were just-"

Harry looked around for his frilly napkin, though he was fairly certain Madam Puddifoot had taken it away along with the dessert plates. "Have I got something on my face?"

"No, your face is fine. I mean-" Draco turned pink and looked out the window by their table. He sighed, took a deep breath, and looked back to Harry. "It was just… the way you were looking at me, for a moment I thought…"

It was Harry’s turn to flush and look away. Had he been staring at Draco oddly? Making eyes at him across the table like Molly at the Hufflepuff Beater? "Sorry, I…" Harry’s breath caught, and he glanced at Draco. This was it. He had to ask. He let the breath out and turned back to look at Draco properly. "I’ve been meaning to ask," he started, and watched as the worry lines took shape all over Draco’s face. "Are we, er… Is this a date? Are we… dating?"

A series of emotions too complicated for Harry to identify flickered across Draco’s face. He didn’t answer for a long moment, grey eyes searching Harry’s face. "I don’t know," Draco finally said. "There was the dare, but after that, you never-"

"Oh," Harry said, a realization hitting him.

"-and I couldn’t quite tell, I mean, you didn’t seem any more affectionate with me than with Tracey, or Longbottom-"

"I was waiting for you-"

"You were? But, _oh_ …"

A laugh bubbled up out of Harry, and the tension he’d been building began to drain away.

"Why were you waiting for _me?"_ Draco was beginning to laugh too, a fluttery giggle between his words. "You’re the big brave Gryffindor. Aren’t _you_ supposed to make the first move?"

"I was just worried that… I mean, I got divorced - amicably, at that - ages ago, but you…"

Draco closed his eyes and shook his head. "Astoria’s laughing at me right now, I’m sure of it." He peeked at Harry. "She would have been on the night of the dare, too. She wanted me to move on, after she was gone, but… I wasn’t meeting anyone in a _Fidelius_ ’ed house in the French countryside. You are actually the only person I’ve-" Draco glanced at the tables of students and leaned toward Harry, speaking more quietly. "You’re the only person I’ve kissed since she died. Or even considered kissing, really."

Harry leaned forward too, and _oh_ , no wonder the kids were always kissing over the top of these tables, they were _small_. "I kind of guessed. It’s why I didn’t want to push you at all. Sort of figured that if you wanted more, you’d say something, or _do_ something."

Draco’s gaze dropped to Harry’s mouth, then flicked back up to his eyes. "I… am not going to snog you in the middle of Madam Puddifoot’s like a slightly misguided fifth-year," Draco said with reluctance, "but just so you know, I seriously considered it."

"Do you wanna get out of here? Find someplace more… private?"

"Private? In Hogsmeade? On the last Saturday before the end of term?"

Harry grinned. "If the less-misguided fifth-years are able to figure something out, I’m confident that we can too."

Draco snorted so hard that Harry would be surprised if it didn’t draw attention. "There’s no such thing as a less-misguided fifth-year. Fifteen is a horrendous age."

"And yet, some of them are still able to find places to snog discreetly. I think we’ll be fine."

Draco laughed as Harry leaned back, stood up, and offered him a hand. "Ready to go?"

Draco looked at Harry’s hand, a gentle, bright smile lighting up his whole face, then back up to meet Harry’s eyes. He reached out.

* * *

It was late when Harry and Draco finally made their way back up to Hogwarts, tipsy on eggnog and affection and the laughter of the friends they’d left at the Three Broomsticks. They stopped outside the door to Draco’s rooms and for a moment just stood there, grinning at each other.

"So…" Draco eventually said, "see you in the morning?"

"Yeah," Harry replied. "What are you doing over break?"

"Scorpius and I will be staying at the Manor." Draco’s gaze grew distant. "It’s not particularly festive, but Mother will be glad for the company."

Harry chewed on his lower lip, then laughed as Draco’s eyes locked onto the movement. "Do you want to come over?"

Draco’s eyes snapped back up to Harry’s. "What?"

"Like, for Christmas. Or Christmas Eve. Or whenever really, except Boxing Day, since we won’t be home then - that’s the big Weasley family Christmas gathering." Draco blinked at Harry with wide grey eyes and didn’t respond, so Harry went on. "I mean, since the Manor’s not very festive. Like you said. Your Mum’s welcome, too. It’s just me and Ginny and the kids, and usually Teddy and Andromeda come over. And we generally open the floo to Ron and Hermione’s sometime in the afternoon, since the kids want to play." Harry chuckled. "The adults too, really. It’s nice. Cosy."

Draco let out a soft, slightly incredulous laugh and shook his head. "Cosy he says. ‘Just’ eleven people, he says."

Harry grinned. "Hey, eleven is cosy for the Weasley family. That thing on Boxing Day I mentioned is at _least_ thirty-seven. Usually more, once in-laws and close friends start getting involved." Draco grimaced, and Harry grinned even wider. "You know, if we’re still dating by next Christmas-"

"Oh _Merlin_."

Harry laughed and leaned in closer, smiling as Draco did as well, their foreheads almost touching. Harry wasn’t sure when they’d gotten their arms around each other.

"How about," Harry murmured, "I call you on the floo in a couple of days, when we’re getting ready to do our Christmas baking? Start there?"

Draco hummed. "That sounds reasonable." Draco’s eyes slipped shut, and Harry’s did as well. Harry was warm all the way through, and from the quiet moan that escaped Draco as their lips met, Harry thought Draco might be, too.

End  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment here or on [livejournal](https://hd-erised.livejournal.com/99286.html). ♥
> 
> This story is part of an on-going anonymous fest hosted at hd_erised@livejournal.com. The author will be revealed January 8th.


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